Finding the Right People

[00:00:00] Good morning, afternoon and evening, everyone, wherever you are joining us forum, and we want to welcome you to the kingdom at work webinar. I’m Amanda. I’m the manager of kingdom at work and our mission is to inspire ignite and equip leaders to find their why we want to partner with you in the marketplace.

So before we get started on today’s webinar, I want to go over a few housekeeping items to ensure a smooth and productive session. So first and foremost, we want this webinar to be as interactive as possible. possible. So please feel free to use the Q& A feature to ask questions, give feedback, share your thoughts throughout the presentation.

We do value your participation. At the end, um, of this session, um, we will finish and we will have a dedicated time for Q& A. During that time, we’ll answer any of the questions that you’ve submitted. So go ahead [00:01:00] and do that anytime as we’re going through the webinar. If for some reason we can’t address all the questions or if there’s something that we need to go into more detail about, um, fear not because our goal is to walk alongside you and provide valuable content.

And so if it is something that we can answer later on, look. For that in our upcoming blog post, so we have those. Um, and then lastly, I want to let you know this webinar will be recorded and the recording will be available for you to review or share with colleagues. We’ll send out an email later this afternoon with the.

Recording link shortly after the event. So let’s hop in today. We’re going to talk about finding the right people. I’m so excited to introduce our speaker today. We have Casey Brewer. Casey graduated with a degree in business management from Texas tech university in 2000, after serving full time in the local church [00:02:00] and kingdom leadership training ministries for almost a decade.

Casey transitioned to Beaton Bow Companies, where he has spent 14 years in a variety of roles. He currently serves as the employee support director, which those of you should know, um, we call HR in other areas, but employee support is what we call it here at Beaton Bow Companies. He oversees our company’s cultural events, training, vision trips, and internal ministry efforts, as well as HR, onboarding, and external recruiting.

He also leads Beaton Bow’s health and wellness initiative. Casey is a graduate of the National Institute of Christian Leadership and is also a certified human behavior consultant. He and his wife Dana have three children, Harley, Ellison, and Jack. For So let’s dive in with Casey Brewer. Well, thanks for that introduction, Amanda.

And thank you all for taking time out of your day or evening and [00:03:00] being a part of this exciting webinar. Let’s just jump right in with a question. We want to, we want to poll you guys. And so I’m curious to know, get your feedback on which you think is more difficult. As a leader in an organization, is it more difficult to find the right people or to keep the right people?

So which do you think is more difficult, finding or keeping them? And we’ll give you guys just a couple of seconds here to start populating your answers. Um, two very difficult things and challenges that every leader must face. And as the results are coming in, thank you for that. It looks like we have quite a few responses and I believe it’s finding the right people that’s kind of taking the lead here.

Now this is almost a trick question because both of these are actually pretty difficult and you can keep submitting your answers [00:04:00] if you want to, but I would suggest that or offer that I would say finding the right people, uh, is probably the more difficult, but if you invest the proper time, energy and resources into finding the right people, then keeping them or retaining them, the chances of that go way, way up.

So this is such a pain point, such a challenge for every single organization. I was doing some research recently and a couple of statistics that were pretty startling to me. Gallup tells us that Just over half, 51 percent of currently employed workers say they’re actively seeking a new job. I mean, let that sink in for just a second.

If that’s true, then half of the people that work for you or with you, likely privately seeking a new job. But then second to that, a different group tells us that 72 percent of employers We’re [00:05:00] actually having a hard time finding skilled candidates. So I think there’s plenty of people out there looking for jobs and why that’s a different topic perhaps, but some of that is relevant for us today.

But then employers are having a really hard time finding skilled candidates, which makes me wonder, is the pool of people not there or are employers perhaps looking at things the wrong way? So maybe our time today will help us identify some of that. So again, let me set the stage by saying, I think filling open positions is easy.

That’s not a hard job to fill positions, but it’s finding the right people that align with your organization is the thing that takes so much time, energy, and investment. So that sets the stage for the webinar today. And here are two key questions right off the top that I want everyone to consider. And the first one is, have you clearly defined who you are as an organization?[00:06:00]

That is, that is absolutely the starting point. And the second question is this, have you clearly defined the process? And that’s the key thing that we’ll talk about today. The process of finding great people for your organization. So define who you are and define the process. Because what we know is that great people, once they’re with you, great people who align with your company will defend your great culture, but then they will also then leave a culture that’s disjointed.

On the flip side, average people, they’re just filling roles. They won’t defend a great culture because they really aren’t a part of it, and they foster a disunified or disjointed culture. So it’s great people who align with the company is what we’re after. Gallup also tells us that when individual identity aligns with company identity, so when those two [00:07:00] things align and come together, employees are at their best and the company is at its best.

So back to our two key questions, defining your unique culture. That’s the starting point. That must come first or else, how do you know what you’re trying to find? Now, we’re not going to dive too deep into this because this topic was actually the topic of the March webinar. So I don’t want to, Unnecessarily repeat ourselves, but it is worth mentioning that God does have a clear purpose for the business or organization that you’re a part of.

And he wants that organization to reveal him to the people. So this has to be the starting point is to define your unique culture. What are the core values? What are the house rules through which you will be hiring people? And if leadership doesn’t clearly know what those are, then there’s no way for the front line people or hiring managers to know, or know what to abide by.

[00:08:00] So what then will be the guaranteed result? Confusion and turnover. And that’s what we don’t want. So, once you’ve clearly defined the kingdom culture God wants to establish, now begins what I would call phase two of the hard work. And that is defending your culture. Which is something that is forever. On repeat for the life of your organization.

Cal’s aunt led a webinar for us back in January and Cal made the statement that the opposite of faith is certainty. So we’re not going to be crystal clear on everything, but the great news is those of you who have surrendered your business and your lives to God and his kingdom, God’s presence is his provision for you.

So while we might not have total clarity on a human level, we do have The king of kings in his provision, his presence is our provision through the process. Maybe think about it this way. If you were to [00:09:00] stop, let’s do just a quick mental exercise together. Let’s make a list of the things that you intentionally invite God into, bring God into for your life.

My oldest child just graduated from college, and so her going from high school to college, her education journey, that was a big prayer point for us, obviously, for lots of reasons. What about purchasing a home, or your kids learning to drive, purchasing vehicles? Those are huge decisions. Job changes, moving cities, and those are significant things that we, I guess, a lot of us probably intentionally invite God in the middle of that.

But what about smaller things? Do you invite God into decisions like where you’re going to go eat this, this evening when work is over or about maybe going on vacation or a holiday with your family? Is that something you invite God into? Or what about when you walk into the coffee shop [00:10:00] and you order that drink?

Do you invite God into what you should order? Now, I think we all might agree there’s probably a lot of things that we should invite God into. But the point that I want us to start with today is that we want to invite God and invite His presence into the entire process of hosting jobs that are open for your company, interviewing people, doing the background work, doing all the hard work during the process.

We want to encourage you, invite Him into all of it. Every step, because without that, we tend to leave it mostly to chance, and that’s just not good enough. And we can look at the example Jesus gave us, and it was clear that He invited His Father and engaged with His Heavenly Father throughout the entire process.

He knew what His purpose was, and His mission. He knew the culture of the kingdom that He [00:11:00] was establishing and trying to multiply. And He heard from the Father about who He was to invite into His innermost circle. Which is a good overview of what I would call three main filters. Maybe it’s like looking through these glasses on my face.

The three main lenses or filters through which we need to start by looking and finding the right people. These are the things you’re seeking to discover. The first thing is a culture fit. Do they already, and that’s the key word here, do the candidates, the people that you’re looking for interviewing, do they already demonstrate the values that define your organization?

Now as a hiring manager, this is not something you should outsource to HR or to other people. If you are to be the leader of that team and that person you’re trying to hire, you must be actively, personally involved in every step of the process. [00:12:00] You have to uncover truth. You’re on a mission to find truth, truth about them as a person and truth about them as a candidate here at our company.

We say that we’re looking for confirmed evidence that this candidate that maybe we have sitting in front of us who are talking to, to some degree, they’re already demonstrating The values of our company of unity, excellence, growth, and generous stewardship. We’re not looking for perfection or that they have it all mastered, but what we are trying to uncover is, do they demonstrate that already to some degree?

And when they walk in the door on day one, Well, they fit into the culture because they already are demonstrating that. And I’ll say this a couple of times throughout our time together today, but hoping that they do, that’s not a good strategy. Y’all hope is not a strategy, hoping they will become a fit over time.

Likely means you’ve hired the [00:13:00] wrong person. So, we’re talking about culture fit, and without culture fit, the other two that I’m about to mention, they don’t really matter at all. Because the second one is job fit. Can they actually do the work required? So how will you know that? You have a specific job.

And you’re looking for someone to come in who fits the culture, but who can also perform the job function. We’ll talk a little bit more specifically about some ways to look at that in here soon, but just because maybe Uncle Jim says that his business partner’s son in law is a good guy and just needs a shot to prove that he can be a successful senior accountant.

Even though he has never studied accounting, that’s probably, that’s probably not good enough. So, referrals are powerful and they’re highly effective, but they have to be put through the appropriate filters. They can’t supersede them. So, culture fit, job [00:14:00] fit, and the third one that we talk about is team fit.

Will they actually be cohesive with the team? Again, hope is not a strategy here. If you’re looking at somebody who has 10 years of experience, They might look like they are a job fit. They have 10 years of experience, but looking at their resume, the average tenure for them is one to two years at each of their last seven jobs.

Maybe you should pause for a second because maybe that’s a clue that there is some cohesion Tension there that might not resonate well with your team So culture job and team fit here at beaten bell We are a highly relational culture and I was a part of a process for bringing on a team member At some point in the, in, in recent past where we were bringing someone on who we felt like fit the core values of the company.

We felt like that they would probably fit [00:15:00] pretty well with a team. They actually did not have hardly any experience in that territory, but we believe because they came on a referral basis that we knew some of the family and we knew that they actually loved the Lord. Particular person was being invited into a leadership role, which is important for us, but they didn’t have the work experience that the team did.

And that’s not always a must have, but we thought we could probably make this work. We can get them trained. We can get them equipped to really function in the job. And. We kind of did the very thing that I’m encouraging you not to do. So please learn, learn from our pain that if we don’t have clarity on those three areas, culture, job, and team, it’s likely going to lead to pain and turnover.

And we learned a pretty tough lesson there that we had to part ways and kind of hit [00:16:00] reset with the team. And I just don’t want people to. Feel the pain that we have on that. So let’s talk about this particular process. Once you’ve been able to look at the filters and, and really begin to determine whether this person might fit within your company and the team, there are some really other specific steps in the process.

That I would encourage you to consider implementing into finding the right people, which you’ve already mostly agreed. The majority of you said finding the right people is more difficult. So let’s just run through several steps here with the time that we have left to implement it. And the process of finding the right people.

And the first one is a clearly defined job description. This might seem obvious, but I think this is a big miss for so many people. Back in our February webinar, Corey Lusk on our team quoted John Maxwell, who says, if you [00:17:00] don’t hardwire what’s important to you, It just won’t happen. And it’s true. If you’re not hardwiring in the most important parts of the job and doing a lot of homework and research ahead of time, then it’s not going to happen because that’s not something that’s being valued and it’s not something you can hold them accountable to.

One idea to consider for us is we tend, we’ve actually broken this up in our company into two different parts. We have the core functions of the job, which is a summary of the role, and then we have the role values for the candidate. Now this is breaking things down pretty detailed, but what we’re trying to do is summarize the five or six core points of what’s most important for the job.

Yes, we want to be specific, but we’re not trying to be exhaustive list because it’s just impossible to come up with an exhaustive list. [00:18:00] And for the ideal candidate, we want to define who they are, what, what would make a person successful. As a person, what did they demonstrate beyond the core values of the company for that job?

And we have a job posted recently for staff accountant with our company. So I went and just pulled a screenshot and I hope you can read that. But this is an example of what we’re talking about where on the left side there, you have the core functions of the role. These are the, some of the specifics that this senior that this, sorry, this staff accountant will be performing.

It’s the second bullet point says work with business leaders to understand each respective business. That’s a great one. The next one says propose analysis driven business recommendations or prepare standalone business financials on a monthly basis. So you can see these are very specific. Accounting specific functions of the job, but look at the other side, the role [00:19:00] values.

Maybe these are born out of pain or frustration for what hasn’t worked. These have to be something that are attainable. These aren’t just like these big pie in the sky dreams, but it has to be, they’re looking for someone who is fast paced. They’re looking for someone who is problem solving guru, that’s a great phrase, improver.

What about this next one? Healthy skepticism. That’s a unique one that they want on the team. Someone who asks good questions and doesn’t just take everything at face value, but they also have to be extremely organized. Which is probably a pretty good one for an accounting role and curious learner. So those are some, some examples of ways to really do the hard work ahead of time to get a really clear job description.

That’s clearly defined for the role. You got to start there. If you don’t know what you’re trying to find. You won’t find it. [00:20:00] So the second one back to our suggested steps is an effective job application that asks really good questions. I think a lot of people post jobs, but they ask really generic. If I’m honest, boring questions.

And if you ask boring questions, you’re probably going to get, well. Boring answers. And that’s not what you want. You’re, you’re looking for the most important characteristics, traits, and skills that an individual must possess in the role. That’s one of the things that we’ll show you in just a second. So you’re trying to uncover stories and examples in your questionnaire and use the questionnaire, like an interview.

Like if you come up with some really great. Questions that can get some really specific feedback. It can serve as a wonderful top level strategic filter for you. I also have an example here of a portion of a questionnaire from a job that we have posted right now. [00:21:00] Again, I apologize for the small writing, but the first question, and this is for.

An employee ops manager role in our company. The first question is what are the most important characteristics, traits, and skills that an individual must possess to succeed in this role? Now that might seem a little generic, but what we know over time is the answer to that question is they will proceed to tell you what they think their strengths are.

And you’re asking about their opinion on the role, but they’re going to take a moment and brag on themselves. which is a good thing for you to dig in on and begin to ask verifiable questions about what they say. The second one, the second question here asks, describe a time or tell us, Ask for feedback on describe a time when you walked closely with someone, not a family member or close friend, and you offered some wisdom, counsel, truth, [00:22:00] accountability, or encouragement and how was it received.

Now this is for a manager role that’s going to be leading people. And so this role comes with an additional set of values that we’re trying to affirm. So what we’re trying to do here is get a story or two with names. So that you as the hiring manager can dig into that story, help you, ask them to help you uncover more details about that.

And they should be telling you names because that’s what it asks for. Tell us a story about walking closely with someone. Now, if, if someone doesn’t answer the question, if they leave that blank, they’ve told you a lot. Either they can’t think of a good story or they don’t have one, or they just don’t want to tell you.

And. That’s probably good enough reason to just move on from them and not, not even waste your time with it, but you’re trying to get stories with names. And one of the other questions on that particular job posting [00:23:00] asks, how do you measure success? So keep in mind, again, this is for an open manager role.

That seems a bit generic. However, the answer to this question is going to tell you whether or not they value other people more than you. Their own success, whose success are they measuring? If they start telling you all the list of accomplishments and awards and how they’ve increased that and added efficiencies here and the stories.

And the tangibles are all about themselves. Well that, that says a lot about them. Which might be a great filter for you to realize, wow, this person, they might be qualified on paper, but they may not be the right team fit for us. So that’s the second point here is a really effective job application. So let’s move on to our third suggestion here and that is to [00:24:00] have a strategic approach to where you’re casting the net.

Now, your website job board probably isn’t enough. Most people discover jobs through personal referrals. Social media is big now. So I don’t, I’m not going to spend too much time on this one, but remember referrals are your best friend. Use them and don’t just post it on your website and hope enough people find it.

The fourth one, let’s talk about this one for just a minute. And that is a step that we utilize in what we call selection process here. And that is a personality assessment. Again, this can be a really great top level filter. And if you’ve done a really good job in defining the role values and the functions, then.

That’s what success can look like in the role. Then this helps to narrow the field. And referring back to our staff accountant role, if this personality assessment reveals that the candidate that you’re interested in is extremely [00:25:00] outgoing, talk a lot about themselves. Maybe you’ve done some background work and you’ve talked to some references and you find out, man, they are a talker, which might be great for some roles.

It might actually be great for accounting, but if their assessment reveals that they are super outgoing. But they do not have a natural bend towards, say, organization and details, then maybe they’re not the right fit for accounting in your company. But they might be a great fit for a different role that’s people focused, not as much emphasis on details, but maybe more on people.

So what the personality assessments do is just add confirmation and add another layer of assurance that you’re headed in the right direction. And just because someone is qualified and can do the job, maybe doesn’t mean that they actually should. Do the job. We have to separate what someone can do versus what they [00:26:00] should do as a part of your organization.

All right. Step number five is what I’m calling a high impact interview journey. Now I don’t make many guarantees about this because every culture is unique, but I can almost certainly guarantee that one interview will likely never tell you enough. We have to get comfortable with. Slowing the process down, knowing this is not just going to happen overnight or even within a week or two, this might take a few weeks because time and repetition are your friends.

You need both of them to verify the candidate’s job, team, and cultural fit. So for us, when we think about an interview journey, there are several steps in that. Again, we’re trying to have repetitious interactions with them. We might have what we call a drive by, which is, for me, it’s a quick, like, 15 to 20 minute phone call.

After I’ve reviewed their [00:27:00] application and their personality assessment, am I still intrigued? They still have my attention and I might call them because I want to know how they interact on the phone. That’s, that’s, that’s pretty important to me. And if that goes well, then I might bring them back in for a one on one interview with me.

So there’s a couple of steps. Then I might bring them back for a group interview, which means I get other managers involved. And I do. One, oftentimes two of those with different managers. So now there’s like four or five of us. Who’ve been a part of this process. And then the last step might be depending on the role, a higher level, senior leader, or like director interview or executive level interview, just to get complete outside perspective.

So that’s the interview journey. Consider adding steps to that. This is where we tend to try to get in the fast lane and just move quickly. You need to have several. [00:28:00] Opportunities here to confirm your suspicions. And step number six is what I would call a job specific simulation. Let’s say you’ve vetted the person.

They seem to really be a fit with the team. They have the qualifications, they fit with the company, but put them in a real life job scenario for just a little bit of time, because what you’re trying to uncover is can they actively demonstrate competence in the role? Like for accounting, for example, do they know how to function in Excel?

Can they create formulas? Can they find errors? Can they correct errors? Do they know how to operate with tabs? These might seem very basic, but I’ve heard stories here of people applying for detailed jobs like that who just have somehow, we’ve missed it up to that point. And they actually Aren’t going to be successful in the role.

And then a really great step here is once you put them in a real life job scenario, where they have a chance [00:29:00] to interact with a job function, part of the role, even with the team. And sometimes in rare occasions, we can actually have them interact with real life customers, of course, being shadowed and supervised.

But once those interactions happen, then sit them down and provide real life feedback. How do they respond to that? If you notice something that you think should be handled differently and you offer a suggestion for how to improve that and they are incredibly defensive or push back, man, that’s something to pay attention to because you want to know, in a culture like a kingdom culture where accountability is key, can they handle that?

And this is a great way to figure that out early on. And then what, what else do you notice about them? How, what’s their pace like? Are they really slow or do they work really fast? Have them take a phone call, like put them in, make something up, have somebody [00:30:00] call and have them interact with you listening or watching, or here’s the one that we’ve figured out the hard way is what if, what if they’re just simple?

Like. I don’t know. Hygiene concerns. Now we’ve really had that where we’ve had someone whose hygiene is a concern for team members who might sit close by and maybe you don’t catch that. And interviews begin on repetition when you catch them on multiple days throughout the journey and you have them interact with the team, they can give perspective of what they noticed, not in an interview style necessarily, but just an interaction with the candidate.

All this can be done through this. Job simulation to determine, can they actually do the work? Another great step that I won’t spend much time on, but just mentioning number seven is problem solving assessments. Now, these are really more important for some roles than others, but there are lots of different tools out there.

We’ve [00:31:00] used two or three different ones throughout the years. Maybe there’s one specific in top and like a sales type of environment versus like a software type of environment where you want to uncover. How can they resolve problems? How can they. Um, react to diversions or distractions in the work.

There’s so many great tools, but again, that’s something to consider depending on the role. Number eight is references. Ask really good open ended questions. Uh, there are so many things. There’s some good suggestions there on the screen. Like if I hire them, how will I help them grow on day one? It gives the former employer permission to answer honestly.

Is there someone else I should talk to? What about this one? Were you sad to see them leave? If you ask that question and the reference at their former job says, you know what? I really wasn’t sad to see them leave. It was time. Maybe you don’t, uh, end [00:32:00] the experience or journey with them there, but it’s something you should pay attention to and learn to ask some good follow up questions or like, how would you summarize the influence they had in your organization?

I think we tend to speed past references and we just want the sugar coated cherry on top answers. And that’s not what references should be for. We should learn to ask really great. Questions. The last couple before we begin to wrap up is a background check drug and alcohol screenings. This can be unique to your culture, but you’re trying to develop a clear process that aligns with your company’s values and policies.

What’s important to you is having a drug and alcohol free work environment important for you. Depending on if they’re operating heavy machinery or they’re customer facing. Uh, if it’s a part time role and entry level role, again, you as a leadership team have to make decisions what’s appropriate in your company and the different levels.

[00:33:00] Of employees, but the process must reflect the company’s values and policies and then test accordingly. We do that periodically here throughout the year randomly, but we do for most of our roles do an onboarding type background check drug and alcohol screening. It’s important for us to check that. And then the last one which is pretty creative but super helpful, number 10, is a spousal interaction or some kind of casual interaction with their significant other.

Now this might seem silly or over the top. Again, this might not be required. That’s for you to decide, but you’d be surprised how much you can learn by just having a cup of coffee with the candidate and their significant other. About two or three years ago, I was walking alongside one of our leaders who was getting ready to bring on a team member on their team.

And one of our last steps is, Hey, let’s, they were [00:34:00] flying in from out of town. So let’s have the spouse come in. We did the last round of interviews, job simulation. Everything seemed to check out. And we took them for dinner, the hiring manager and I, our spouses, and then the candidate, him and his spouse.

And over dinner, it became crystal clear. Not that we had a problem with the candidate, but the more conversations we had with his wife, we, we realized the wife was actually the better candidate than the one who we had been interviewing, but she wasn’t applying. That kind of put us in a unique, unique position.

So we ended up actually not moving forward with that candidate. We got all the way through the process and did not offer a job because we, we just saw that there are some things that we just didn’t love and the spouse would have been better, but she wasn’t applying. It was just a really cool way to have confirmation.

Another example that I’ll offer [00:35:00] in, in closing here is. About four years ago, as part of came to my work, actually, I was going to bring on a marketing specialist, kind of an online social media person. And I got this application and resume from a girl named Connor, who actually works here today, still four years later.

And I knew from looking at her resume and her questionnaire and application, I just felt it strongly in my spirit. I’m about to hire her. I just knew it. But we have a process. And I knew better than just to make a job offer. So we put Connor through the entire process and I, I knew after every interaction, she’s the one, she’s the one, she’s the one.

But I kept giving myself and the Holy Spirit time to confirm or redirect me. And every time when I brought another manager in to be involved without telling them how strongly I felt about her. They would [00:36:00] look at her application, her resume, have interactions with her. And one guy who wasn’t very quick to give.

Like off the charts, positive feedback said to me, Whoa, this is your person. Isn’t it? She’s the one you’re supposed to hire. And I said, yeah, she’s the one I’m supposed to hire. But every step of the way from the interviews to the job simulation, to the reference check, just affirm that. And I left room to be surprised if something popped up that I didn’t want to move forward with.

But the steps gave me that confirmation. But just remember, this is not foolproof. We are stewarding God’s ministry in the marketplace. You as a leader are stewarding God’s ministry in the marketplace, otherwise known as your business, and you’re stewarding the life of the person involved in applying for the job.

Just remember what it was like when you were on the other side, when you were the one applying and interviewing. You’re stewarding their journey as well. [00:37:00] Two final ideas you might consider is Incentivize the referrals, incentivize your people with real cash to refer people to open job roles that you have, and also creatively get involved with using recruiters, maybe even hiring your own recruiter.

We have one on our team. If you have. 40 or 50 people on your team as full time employees. It might be time to thinking about bringing on one who can help fill roles and get out in front of candidates at job fairs and monitor job postings. There’s so many ways to creatively capture a wider audience. We just don’t want to miss any of those things.

So I know I’ve thrown a lot at you and rather than keep talking, I think what I’ll do is pause my part and ask Amanda. To hop back on. Maybe there’s some questions that have come in. Maybe Amanda, you have some questions for us that [00:38:00] we can hopefully together answer. Yeah. Thank you, Casey. So good. I love that last part.

You said that we’re stewarding, not only the people that we bring on our team, but also those that are applicants. I think that’s an area that a lot of people forget during the hiring process. So we do have several questions. Hey, if you have any questions, you. Would like to ask Casey, um, please write that in down at the bottom of your screen, there’s a Q and a button and you can submit those.

We will get to as many as we can. So first question we had come in, um, I think this is so good because sometimes you don’t realize how important it is. How much time should I block off and invest when I have an open position and I’m hiring? Yes. Great question. I think as much time as you can possibly give it.

Is a simple answer. This does take a lot of time. [00:39:00] We talked to our leaders here often about the urgent versus the important. It’s a great leadership training tool. What’s urgent and what’s important. And if you have an open role, that means You’ve strategically made a decision as an organization and as a team leader to either add a position or backfill one that’s previously been there.

In either case, there is likely a workload consideration on the current team members and on you as the leader, which means if you don’t take this seriously and make This hiring process, the selection process, a top priority, that pain, that tension is only going to grow and be magnified over time. So there are very few things that should stay on your calendar as a recurring event, when you’re trying to find someone to fill that gap.

A key [00:40:00] position on your team. So again, I’ll go back to what I first said is it has to be a top priority and it should take as much time as you can give it. There should be hours and hours every single week spent on this reviewing applications. Spending time with recruiters or recruiting strategies to cast the net, talking on the phone with candidates, interviewing one on one with candidates, or if you have a teammate or a fellow leader who’s trying to hire, giving two or three hours of your time every week to them to help them fill those roles.

Again, it just takes us, I think we should pause and remember what it’s like when we’ve had open roles for a while. Like one of the leaders who I’m directly supporting right now has had that employee operations manager role posted open for the better part of nine months now. And she absolutely has made that a priority.

It’s just, we’ve been through a lot of candidates and the [00:41:00] filters work and there are some great candidates now in the, in the mix, but we just can’t rush this, Amanda. I don’t know if you, you’ve hired plenty of people throughout your professional experience. Is there anything there that you would add?

Well, I will say block it off as a leader. You know, that’s one thing like you say, okay, yeah, I’m going to make this a priority. But if your calendar doesn’t reflect that, and you haven’t blocked off time, then is it really, you know, because, uh, time is your treasure and your calendar is a reflection of that.

So I would say, as you are posting something, which I’m about to post a new position, Yeah. Um, for our team and I already went through the month of June and blocked off time every single day for hiring. That way I can plan ahead, but it’s still at the same time care and make sure that I’m stewarding my team and what God has placed in our hands.

Well, so yeah, that’s good. Schedule it. That’s a great one. It is. Absolutely. Next [00:42:00] question. What are some ways to find out if someone will be cohesive with a team? Yeah, that’s. That’s probably going to be really specific to the team, but I think your, I think a job simulation is a big part of that and not to have the job simulation performed in oscillation at home.

Like I’m sitting here thinking about our software teams, for example, and I’m not a software developer by, by any means. But if you’re trying to determine their knowledge base of code and writing and understanding and problem solving, then, but the job is actually in the office, it’s not a remote position, then it’s absolutely critical.

They come into the office, into the work environment, into the suite itself, the work suite or work pod itself, perform the job simulation in real time alongside other people. [00:43:00] So the team can have a chance to interact casually, to watch them maybe work professionally. Yes, it’s awkward because everybody in the room knows while they’re there.

That’s okay. That’s what a team is for. Maybe have like a team lunch or a team coffee where they can just interact with them. That’s one part of it. But I also think during the interview process, during those interviews is getting really specific. Yeah. Feedback, stories and names from previous work experience, learning to ask really great questions like, tell me about a time when you and a team member worked really well on a project.

What were the key metrics of success? Tell me about a time you and a team member didn’t see eye to eye on something. How did you approach that? What was your response? What did you say? What did they say? Tell me about the people involved in that. [00:44:00] Listen for names. And then if you know names and places where they’ve worked, follow that trail.

Maybe you should ask permission before you do that, but hey, you know, for example, I heard you mentioned John on your team at your previous job that you used to work with. Would it be okay if I called him and just got more details on this story? Again, this is not going to be foolproof. You have to get other people involved.

You have to rely on the Holy Spirit to give you clues and sharpen your discernment throughout the process. But once you’ve learned kind of the unique culture of your team, and you’re being led by the Holy Spirit, and having other leaders be involved in the process to ask really great questions in the interview, and really great job simulation, I think the references can help confirm that.

But if you’re not sure, then I would say add a step. Add an [00:45:00] interview, add some sort of interaction to give you that peace or else do not move forward. If there’s doubt about the team, you haven’t been able to really figure that out, push pause or add steps is what I would say.

Yeah. Fantastic examples on that. Next question is, do you have a master list of role values that you can choose from when building a role overview sheet? Great question. I love that question. That’s probably coming from someone who is feeling the pain and wants this to happen quickly. And the short answer is no, I don’t really have, I don’t personally have a master list.

I think the best tool is, is just to look back at the previous person in the role, what made them successful and make a list of the things that you love most about them. [00:46:00] This is not necessarily personality based. This is their problem solving skills, their attention to detail, their boldness in team meetings or in meetings with clients or customers, their response time.

Make a list of the things. that you are thankful for and proud of in team members who are being successful. Also make a list of the pain points or frustrations that you experienced with the person who was previously in the role. And let those inform you as to what’s most important for you. Turn those pain points or frustrations into role values.

If someone was hesitant to do follow ups in sales, for example, they didn’t love the phone calls, they didn’t follow up on a consistent basis, then you know a role value for that job is something along the lines of [00:47:00] Um, courageous in follow ups or tenacious in follow ups, something along those lines where you’re not going to have to continually poke and prod them to do that part of the job.

Oh, and now over time, as you develop dozens of these roles, maybe you can create your own list, but I actually wouldn’t recommend that. I think it’s unique to the position and the season you’re in, because I know on one of the teams that I’m directly supporting what we’ve had as a leader in the past season when we’ve been developing this team is different than what I’m looking for in the next season as we now move into more of a sustainability phase as opposed to building the team phase, if that makes sense, those roles are different.

Those leaders values are going to be a little different looking for someone who. You can dig into more of the details and the data and the reporting side, as opposed to this entrepreneurial style [00:48:00] of blazing a new trail. So the entrepreneurial trailblazer was on the one that I had last time, but that’s probably not going to be on it for this, for this next season, even though it’s the same role, just that we’re in different seasons now.

So I would hesitate on using a master list as you create new roles. Unless it is a position that you have multiples of that role, like in our construction side, our builder role, which is widely known as superintendent. Those are largely the same because we might have five or six of those same roles in the same region.

And then in a different city, the same region, I mean, in a different city, the same role has the same role values. Those are repetitive because it’s the same role, but that’s different than just picking and choosing from a master list. I hope that makes sense. Yeah. No, [00:49:00] that actually makes great sense. Uh, next question.

I think we have two more, unless we get a few more that come in. Next one says, uh, can you give some examples of some of the feedback you’ve given to candidates before? I think that’s really good because sometimes people get nervous about giving that. So good examples of this, Casey. Things like, hey, I noticed when you were working in that spreadsheet that you tended to, to move really slowly and I was expecting the task to take 15 minutes and you took 30.

Now, if that’s a deal breaker, you should probably tell them that. That’s just taking too long, uh, for that task. And there’s a lot of those tasks on repeat, but I know of a leader who was a little concerned about the pace of someone doing the job simulation recently gave them the feedback of, Hey, I noticed that you took that really slowly.

Can you help me understand [00:50:00] if you had a hard time understanding my instructions or you. That’s, that’s just your pace. That’s just is what it is or some other reason. And they gave a great answer about double checking. And I think if I remember right, this one actually, uh, they were accustomed to using an online version of a particular software tool, and they were using a desktop version of the tool in the job SIM.

And so it caused them to have to really slow down and navigate that differently. Other times, uh, feedback that we’ve given is, Hey, especially after the interviews. Maybe, you know what, in that interview, I, I saw a little bit of defensiveness or a little bit of uncertainness in your answer about that story.

Maybe you didn’t offer as many details as the last time, or you hesitated giving an example this time or the last time you didn’t. We say around here a lot, to be clear [00:51:00] is to be kind. And in a job selection process, I think we just have to be really crystal clear and know that, uh, Giving honest, real time feedback about their body language.

about their eye contact. I’ve given feedback about that one recently. It’s, Hey, I know it’s every time we ask, ask you a question, you would turn and look away from us while talking and never look us in the eye. Uh, can you help me understand that? Or have you given, have you received that feedback before?

And in this case, they said, yes, I’m so sorry. I’ve been given that feedback before I get nervous. And when I get nervous, I look away. And so we made the comment to them, well, it’s important to us that you make really good eye contact because when you don’t, it gives off the impression that you’re not being genuine or authentic.

So if we choose to bring you back for the next round of interviews, we want you to consider working really hard on that particular point. They took the [00:52:00] feedback well, there was the next interview, and there was tangible difference. And so we were able to give that feedback to them. So those are just some quick examples off the top of my head.

No, those are great. I think it’s one that people forget that kind is clear. And that is really one of those that we can give someone a gift to speed back that a lot of people never get that. So those are great examples. Because if we don’t give them the If we don’t love them well enough to give them feedback in the moment, then we miss an opportunity to help them grow.

Like you say, we, maybe it’s growing with us or maybe it’s growing somewhere else. And if we as an interview team or as a hiring manager have specific tangible feedback, it could be as simple as, uh, hygiene, or it could have been the eye contact thing, or it could have been their pace. We hold that information and don’t tell them.

And then we reject them. They never know why. And then [00:53:00] their perception of Beaton Bow as a whole, or your company, if you’re the one hiring, might be misconstrued. And they’re talking about that out there in the community, perhaps in a negative way, and that was never our intent, but we have all this information that we didn’t share.

So we should, we should be kind and give them real time feedback about things that Concern us whether we’re going to advance them in the process or not. Yeah, absolutely. Last question. We have how do you value? emotional intelligence for hiring

Man, that’s a maybe that’s a whole webinar topic for the future. There’s so many things going on right now. I’ll write it down I mean, I mean really with you know, less than five minutes to go here That’s a I feel like we’re about to jump off the deep end emotional intelligence well again [00:54:00] Maybe I’m sounding like a broken record, Amanda, but if we allow ourselves plenty of time to have repetitious interactions with them in multiple settings, phone, email, in person interviews, Zoom, and we have a chance to get to know them and learn their mannerisms.

We’re going to learn a lot about how they interact with people and whether they fit the team, you know, it’s okay. I’m, I tend to be sometimes an emotional person. My wife would agree with that, that neither qualifies nor disqualifies me for the role. Sometimes my emotions might lead me to have to apologize more often than some people get a chance to.

But it also, I think serves me well. Some sometimes in my role. So maybe it’s also role specific. If I’m hiring for someone [00:55:00] in, in sales, I probably don’t want someone who’s just very monotone with. Not a lot of voice inflection. Like we want somebody who’s got some, got some emotion to them and it’s okay.

If they fit the values of the company and the role, maybe we can coach them on some of the emotional points, but you as a leader have to determine whether that’s something you want to take on or not. And, um, it’s just such a big topic because there’s so much to that. There’s personal history. There’s marriage and family stuff.

There’s previous job factors that all play into that. And we just have to uncover with time what the truth is, what’s behind that, and whether we are comfortable with leading them on that team and in that role. So that’s probably not a very helpful answer. It’s just hard to get into that one too deeply.

What do you think? [00:56:00] I think you answered it really well at the beginning. The more that you have that repetition with them, you can uncover through stories. Um, and if it is one of your like role values, like to have self awareness for that job, to have social awareness. Like I know those are specific with EQ, but I think that’s really important to define what that is.

It’s one so many people can be coached in that area. Um, and so that’d be something to uncover. Are they willing to be coached? That’s right. And if you sense that they have some social awareness, um, concerns, for example, during one of the interviews or interactions, maybe we can give that feedback to them.

And if they’ve heard it before, if they haven’t, then we have to determine whether we can coach that or if that’s just a red flag. And we’re going to part ways and move on to a different candidate. Then we get to make that. choice as we go along, uh, with the Holy Spirit’s leading. [00:57:00] And one last thing I will say, Amanda, if I’m hiring for a role, there’s not one interview or one candidate that I’m not processing with my leader.

all the time throughout the week. We just don’t do this in isolation. We talk about bringing people into interviews and the process. It’s also really important that I’m not processing this alone as I walk away from those, that my leader knows the concerns, my top candidates and how I feel about the process.

So as someone who’s much less emotionally involved, speaking of, they can be a stable, resounding board. That is one step removed that knows me well, knows the team well, and can offer wisdom and sound advice in real time as I go along. That’s really important. Really great wisdom. Thank you, Casey. Hey, thank you guys for joining us.

A few, um, last things, 30 seconds here if you’ll give me. We are so excited to have our first ever Work With Purpose conference. [00:58:00] That QR code right there that is on the screen that is going to get you right to our registration if you are in the Lubbock, Texas area. This is for entry level manager level leaders.

If you want to bring your team, it is going to be at the Buddy Holly Hall tickets are on sale for 30 each. The next thing I want to talk to you about is next month’s webinar. We are so pumped because this summer we are going to have next month Holly Beatonbow. She is going to have a um, webinar over accidental alliances.

So that is going to be at June, on June 12th and that QR code right there on your screen will get you there. There to register. And then, um, last thing is our Kingdom at Work Leadership Workshop. Our next one is going to be October 1st through the 3rd. This is for business owners, CEOs, and their executive teams.

If you have any questions on those three events that we are doing, [00:59:00] Please, um, visit us at kingdomatwork. com and my team would love to talk with you, connect with you, and partner with you. We appreciate all of you for joining us. Have a wonderful day wherever you are at today. Bye bye.